1,262"Hey, hey. Look at that," Lissa said as Rose walked into the apartment twenty minutes later. "First night in a new town and you're already making a name for yourself as a skank."
Rose laughed at her best friend's teasing, and if it hadn't smelled so damn good, she'd have thrown Dimitri's shirt at her in retaliation. "Thanks a lot," she said dryly as she plopped down onto the couch next to her.
Lissa's eyes narrowed. "And what do you know? For the first time ever, you're actually returning home with more clothes than you left with. What's up with that?" She made a grab for the shirt, but Rose's lightning fast reflexes prevented her from getting it.
"Mine," she practically growled, eliciting a laugh from her friend.
"Who was he?" Lissa demanded.
Rose shook her head. "Uh-uh. First things first. What are you doing up at four in the morning the day before classes?"
"Well, I'll tell you what I wasn't doing," Lissa decided. "I sure as hell wasn't getting laid."
Rose sighed with exaggerated contentment. "Too bad for you."
"I just got off the phone with Christian," Lissa explained. She'd apparently realized that until she spilled, her friend wouldn't do the same. "He misses me."
Rose wrinkled her nose. "You guys are disgusting."
Lissa sighed. "We used to be," she said with a pout. "Back when we saw each other every day."
Rose giggled. "You mean yesterday?"
"Yes!" Lissa exclaimed. "It's barely been thirty-six hours, and already I miss him like crazy."
"He wouldn't give it up over the phone, huh?" Rose joked.
"Oh, he did," Lissa assured her friend, and then grinned. "He was just sorry you weren't here."
"What?" Rose asked in confusion.
"He was sort of hoping you'd pick up the other line and make it a threesome."
"That is just…wrong," Rose said. "On so many levels."
"Agreed," Lissa said. "So…now that I've shared…"
Rose sighed, not sure of how much of her earlier escapade she actually wanted to share with her friend. "I met a guy at the bar—"
"So Adrian's fake ID worked," Lissa cut in.
Rose nodded. "Got me through the door," she confirmed.
Lissa grinned. "And how long before you hooked up?"
"Oh, it was at least half an hour," she admitted wryly.
"Are you losing your touch, Rose?" Lissa teased.
"Absolutely not," Rose said fiercely. "And if you'd been there to see me leave with the hottest guy in the place, you'd have no reason to doubt my mad skills."
Lissa laughed heartily as she studied her friends face. "But it's not your skills I'm interested in," she reminded her friend. "How was he?"
"Dimitri," Rose told her friend.
"Oooh," Lissa said with a shiver. "If his name is anything to go by, he's sexy as hell. Description, please."
"Tall, dark, handsome…" As Rose's voice trailed off, Lissa sighed.
"Important stuff, please!" she insisted huffily.
"And he almost broke me in two," Rose finished with a satisfied gleam in her eyes.
Lissa gasped. "You're kidding me. Was he better than—"
"Oh, yes," Rose answered, nodding slowly. It didn't matter whose name Lissa was going to finish her sentence with. The answer was a firm yes—Dimitri had been a better lover than anyone she'd ever been with. Never mind that there had only been two men she'd been with prior to him. "Liss…his body…it was amazing. I swear, he was hard as a rock and…not just down there. I couldn't stop running my hands over his chest...his thighs—"
"I bet he liked that," Lissa said with a knowing grin.
"Well…if his groans were anything to go by…"
"Awww!" Lissa said with a shudder and Rose's eyes widened.
"Lissa, you're scaring me."
"Yeah, I'm scaring me," she confessed. "I'm afraid this…going to separate colleges thing isn't going to work for Christian and me. I mean…I thought I could live vicariously through my slutty friend—"
"Hey!" Rose cut in.
Lissa gave her a stern look.
"Yeah, OK," she admitted. "I do have slutty tendencies. But I don't let just anyone into my bed. Only men with exotic accents and—"
"He had an accent?" Lissa asked with a groan.
Rose nodded.
Lissa sobbed half-heartedly. "I am so jealous."
"Of my Russian lov-ah?" Rose taunted good-naturedly.
"I swear to God, Rose," Lissa warned. "If you don't stop, I might crawl on top of you tonight."
Rose sprung up off the couch at that. "Stopping," she informed her friend, holding her hands up in front of herself as a gesture of surrender. "And hey," she said, looking over her shoulder as she started down the hallway. "Just in case you get any ideas, I'm locking my bedroom door."
The first thing Rose smelled when she woke up was him. She rolled over onto her back and let Dimitri's scent wash over her as she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She hadn't gotten much sleep; her mind hadn't been able to turn itself off to thoughts of him.
She stretched with a heavy sigh and instead of snuggling underneath the covers—which was what she really wanted to do—she climbed out of bed and threw her hair up, then changed into a pair of shorts, a t-shirt, and her sneakers and headed out for a run.
She'd lost track of time while she'd been running, and by the time she made it back to her apartment, she had just enough time to shower, brush her teeth, and grab a package of pop tarts before she left for class.
She had World Civilization first thing this morning, and the last thing she wanted to do was make a bad impression on her professor. She'd done enough of that in high school. College was a fresh start, and she was going to do her best to make sure she at least appeared to be responsible.
After finding the right building, it was a cinch to find her classroom. The seats near the front were full (kiss-asses) so Rose took a seat closer to the back and pulled her still-damp hair up into a pony tail.
She fumbled through the book bag at her feet looking for the right text book, and after pulling out two wrong ones, she bent over to inspect the contents. Fuck. She'd left without her World Civ book. So much for first impressions, Rose, she silently scolded herself.
She pulled out a notebook and pencil to take notes with and began to doodle while she waited for her professor. She was so lost in sketching that she didn't even realize he'd walked in until he spoke.
"Welcome to World Civilization."
The slight Russian accent caused the pencil in Rose's hand to freeze mid-stroke and she felt her cheeks begin to heat. "No way," she breathed as her fist clenched around her pony tail. No. Fucking. Way.
Rose took a deep breath and looked up…and straight into the face of the man whose bed she'd graced last night.